Through Ice and Time

by CursedNecrosphere (Kaitlyn) in lost in my own dreams
February 8th, 2017

Through Ice and Time

I’m here… the castle where I’ll confront my arch nemesis. Finally, I’ll be able to save my kingdom from being frozen for eternity. There’s no going back now… But I know I should finish what I have started. I walked further, going faster and faster as my courage grew, and soon I broke into a run as I approached the icy figure at the throne. She gave me a welcoming smile, though I’m sure it was not a kind one. It was one that was determined to destroy me, one that made fun of my incompetence. This only made my fiery sword glow brighter.

However, just when I was about to swing my sword and finish her forevermore, I was frozen. Frozen for another time… frozen for exactly four hundred forty-four billion years, four months, and fourteen days.

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I can’t see a thing. There’s darkness all around me. I feel nothing… nothing at all.

But then I heard a child’s astonished voice exclaim, “She’s melting, mommy!”

I discovered I could move again. The darkness faded away. I realized I was standing the same way I was earlier. My enemy wasn’t in front of me anymore, so I stepped out of my battle stance. There was a wet puddle where I was standing… and I was soaked. Odd… did someone spill something on me? I narrowed my eyes in suspicion. I decided to take a look at my surroundings. I was in a house of some sort. Someone in front of me was watching a metal cube with interest. Something in it was spinning around over and over and over and over... This made me dizzy, so I looked at the person gazing at it instead. They haven’t noticed me just yet.

I stepped back with shock. Immediately after I glanced at this person I recognized her. She was the one who would freeze us all – the Ice Queen! “Stop your silly tricks, Ice Queen! I’ll finish you no matter where I am!” I yelled, pointing my legendary blade at her. This is the time I finally noticed the child standing next to me, who jumped in fright and hid behind who I was confronting.

“M-m-mommy, she’s so scary!” stammered the child. I thought it was odd that the Ice Queen would have a child.

She turned toward me, nonetheless, smiling. Not in the malicious way I thought she would. She looked completely different from the last time I saw her. I gasped in surprise, as I found out she wasn’t who I thought she was. I lowered my sword, embarrassed. “Who are you?” I asked, perplexed.

“I’m Casey,” she answered. She gestured to her child. “This is Miles.”

The child timidly waved at me.

I waved back, although I knew they probably still think I’m crazy. I had so many questions, and Casey answered most of them with her explanation. While she was taking a walk along the river she found me, frozen and quite still. She took me inside thinking that I’d be a nice decoration for her house (she thought I was a statue…) until I melted. She had no idea how long I had been standing there.

I sighed in disappointment. The Ice Queen could’ve gotten away by now. Who would get her if I didn’t? How could I save the world from all the way over here?? Casey was wondering who the Ice Queen was. I was surprised she hadn’t heard of her, but I explained that the Ice Queen was actually an Elemental disguising as one of us. Since she was the Elemental of Ice, she hated the fact that ordinary people warded off the cold by emitting heat (through cooking and other things). Because of that, she started freezing people, buildings, and even whole realms with her powers. And then she started to head toward my kingdom, Provincia. Since I had inherited the Fire Blade from my great grandfather, I was the only one who could stop her.

“When I finally reached her, I ended up here,” I finished. “So where am I, exactly?”

“You’re in the state of Pennsylvania,” Casey replied.

I was struck with confusion. I didn’t know what a city was, and I’ve never heard of a kingdom called Pennsylvania. I must be farther from home then I thought. “Do you have something that could get me back to Provincia?” I asked. Hopefully they had something. That way I could get back to Provincia before the Ice Queen does.

“I need to know one thing before I can figure out what you need. What year is it?” Casey asked. It seemed like a strange question, but I answered.

"One million, six hundred forty-three thousand, seventy-second year of the fourteenth era,” I replied.

In Provincia, we count the years from the beginning of time. We separate eras from others by counting up to a billion years and then starting over. At the last day of the billionth year, we name the era and celebrate the passage of time by trying our best at everything we decide to do that day. Of course, I thought this was completely ordinary, but Casey’s expression showed her confusion for a second. She turned it back to her comforting smile almost immediately afterward. She assured me that she had something. She led me up a set of stairs and into her attic. Then she revealed… the time machine.

“If you step into it and enter the right year, I’m sure you’d get back home. I inherited it from my great grandfather,” Casey said as I studied it.

I found it interesting we both inherited something, but I was too busy looking the time machine’s features to think about it much. It was a metal cube with a door at the front, like the one Casey was watching when I first met her, only it was huge. It was definitely big enough for me to be in it without slouching. I wonder if the people of Pennsylvania make everything a metal cube. That would certainly make it more interesting to step outside.

“Are you sure this will work?” I inquired.

Casey nodded. It didn’t seem like she was lying, so I stepped into it and closed the huge door behind me. I was greeted with complete darkness. However, a white square of light blazed to life the second I closed the door, illuminating the whole box. Symbols appeared on top of the light. I couldn’t understand one of them. Alarmed, I backed up. I backed up so far I accidently pushed the entrance to the machine open. The white light vanished just as fast as it came. I gave Casey a desperate look.

“I can’t understand anything that white light is saying!” I complained. “How am I supposed to go back home when I don’t know what it’s talking about?!”

“You can’t read?” Casey asked, surprised.

“Read???” I, of course, answered her question with a question.

Casey decided to tell me what the symbols meant. According to her, they are asking for when and where I want to travel to. I gathered up the courage to go back in. I told the white light exactly when and where I wanted to be. Then everything went black.

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I found myself exactly where I wanted to be. And I saw everything. My past self swung her sword, and right before she hit the Ice Queen froze her. She vanished right before my eyes, probably now at Casey's. I snuck out of the bush I was hiding in, and slowly approached the Ice Queen. I cautiously came out from behind while she laughed at my other self. Abruptly, so suddenly that even I was surprised, I struck her with my blade.